As is known, the use of pneumatic (i.e. air-inflated) tires in mounted assemblies for handling vehicles or power lift trucks generates instabilities particularly if these vehicles are piled up vertically.
To remedy this disadvantage it is known practice for such applications to fit non-pneumatic tires (i.e. tires that have no inflation valve on the rim that accepts this tire) with an elastomer insert obtained by the axial juxtaposition of two lateral halves that are substantially in the shape of a half torus, each having a multitude of mutually parallel and evenly spaced circumferential channels, these channels being airtight and filled with gas such as air at standard pressure at the time of manufacture of these insert halves.
Of the other types of mounted assembly that exist for handling vehicles or power lift trucks, mention may, for example, be made of those that use an insert made of a cellular material (e.g. made of polyurethane foam) which fills the inside of the tire, this having the disadvantage of generating problems with uniformity of filling and also of undesirable heating of the tire during use.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 1,401,507 discloses a mounted assembly having a one-piece wheel rim on which a pneumatic tire is mounted and which incorporates a torus-shaped elastomer insert with a circumferential cavity that can be inflated via the wheel valve, this insert being mounted in such a way that it does not bear on the wheel rim and having the body of this valve pass through it for inflating this cavity. The latter in axial section is “∞”-shaped, making it likenable to an airtight air chamber formed of two lateral half-chambers of small lateral thickness which are joined together by a portion of reduced radial height, which means under run-flat conditions that this insert with air chamber collapses radially, together with the pneumatic tire that it supports, thus making this mounted assembly ill-suited to being fitted to handling vehicles or power lift trucks.
Document DE-A1-27 48 886 discloses an insert for supporting a pneumatic car tire consisting of a honeycomb cellular framework which has no cavity internal to the insert and which can be inflated via the wheel valve, and which is not suited to being fitted to a power lift truck or to a handling vehicle.
Document DE-U1-84 32 017 discloses an insert for supporting a pneumatic tire which likewise is not suitable for being fitted to such a truck or vehicle.